Lisa Wells is an author, editor, and documentarian.
To make a short story longer: I’m the author of Delinquents, forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2027, a collection of essays about about poetry, poverty, death, motherhood, and other subjects. My book Believers (FSG, 2021) tells the story of trailblazers from across the globe who have developed radically new ways to live, reconnect to the earth, and repair ecological degradation in the face of species loss and climate change. Believers was a finalist for the 2022 PEN E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and was Recommended Reading in many publications including The Observer, Outside Magazine, Book Riot, Bookforum, and the New York Times Book Review.
I’m also the author of two books of poetry, most recently, The Fire Passage, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and selected by Diane Seuss as the winner of the Levis Poetry Prize (Four Way Books, 2025). My debut, The Fix, won the Iowa Poetry Prize (2018).
My essays have been published by Granta, The Believer, N+1, The New York Times and recent features in Harper’s Magazine were selected by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson for The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and by Padma Lakshmi for The Best American Food and Travel Writing.
I live in Portland, Oregon (my hometown!) with Joshua Marie Wilkinson. Together we edit the Kuhl House Poets Series at The University of Iowa Press.